Aretha Moon and the Dead Hairdresser: Aretha Moon Book 2 (Aretha Moon Mysteries)

by Linda Ross

  “Disappeared. I let him out in the back yard last night before we went to bed, and he never came back in. I’ve looked all over, and I can’t find him.” She was near tears.

  “Okay, let me go back to your house with you and look around.” I popped my head into Lorenzo’s office, told him where I was going, and we left.

  Joan’s neighborhood was quiet except for the TV playing in her neighbor’s house. I walked through the gate and around back with her and surveyed the yard. It was small and tidy with little pockets of flowerbeds, now brown and dormant. There was one large tree in the back yard, and its dead leaves were strewn all over. The wooden fence met the ground all the way around with no holes or trenches for Stewart to escape. And no wildlife could get in unless it could climb a fence. Not that any wildlife I knew would want to tangle with Stewart.

  “Is that the only gate?” I asked, pointing to the way we’d come.

  “There’s another one on the other side.”

  I walked around the back of the house to the other gate and looked around. There seemed to be a trail through the leaves, like something had been dragged. I didn’t want to alarm Joan, so I didn’t say anything.

  “What rooms are on this side of the house?” I asked.

  “Just the spare bedroom. I don’t really use it except to store things. I let Stewart out from the kitchen in the back.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “Well, he always barks and growls when he’s out. Sometimes people go by walking their dogs and he stands at the gate and barks. I heard him barking, but I just thought somebody was going by. Then I didn’t hear anything, and I figured he was doing his business. He’s quite the pooper, you know. You’d think he was a boxer at the amount of poop he leaves. He does eat a lot of popcorn. He loves popcorn. And hot dogs.”

  She went through a list of Stewart’s menu preferences and bathroom habits, and I let her ramble. I knew she was worried, and I was too. It looked like someone had dragged Stewart out through that gate. How they accomplished that I didn’t know. Given Stewart’s disposition, I was hoping they took him alive.

  “Who knew about you winning the money with Stewart’s help?” I asked.

  “Just about everybody on the street and probably most of the store clerks. Mrs. Mallory two houses down comes over for coffee a couple of times a week, and she knew. She probably told everyone else.”

  That left a whole world of suspects.

  “Do you want me to leave the fact that Stewart’s missing out of the story?” I asked.

  Joan shook her head. “Maybe somebody will know where he is. I really miss the way he growled in his sleep. It was so soothing.”

  Okay. I left Joan with a promise that the story would run on Monday and that I would keep an eye out for Stewart in the meantime. I had a feeling that if Stewart was out there somewhere he was making someone’s life miserable. The only motivation I could see to snatch him was jealousy. Joan had won a lot of money because of Stewart, and some people couldn’t handle that. Maybe they were hoping for a reward for returning him.

  When I got back to the office Lorenzo wanted to know where Thelma and I were on the murder story. We filled him in, and he decided we didn’t have enough to do another story at the moment, but we should keep interviewing people.

  I put some ice in my World’s Best Bowler mug and poured in some Diet Coke. Then Thelma and I went over what we had.

  “We’ve got three more guys on the list,” I said, “but I think we can cross off Derek. We already talked to him, and the way he folded when you told him who you are I don’t think he has the DNA to be a brutal killer.”

  “Agreed. But we can’t forget about the women either. We can forget Hominy since she’s dead. But there’s Stephanie Riley who had some kind of disagreement with Kara and has now disappeared. And of course Rose.”

  “I don’t know what motive Rose would have.”

  “Maybe she and Kara had a falling out over a man.”

  “I guess that’s possible.”

  “Why don’t we do one of the guys on the list tomorrow? Then maybe we can try Stephanie Riley again.”

  “Good idea. And of course there’s David.”

  Thelma rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re going to go through with that party.”

  “Who knows? I might find out something.”

  “Like what it’s like to be chained in a basement?”

  I ignored that. “We’ve got that carpet cleaner too. Maybe we could take care of them with a phone call.”

  Thelma agreed and looked up their number. She turned on the charm, and when she hung up she shook her head. “I talked to the guy who did the cleaning, and he remembered it because he had to clean blood off the bedroom carpet. He was really scared by the whole experience. He said Kara told him her boyfriend had cut himself shaving.”

  “I just bet he did,” I muttered. We decided to cross the carpet cleaner off the list.

  The next morning Lorenzo decided he wanted a special holiday horoscope for Thanksgiving the following week, so I had to come up with that. Lorenzo seemed to be really enjoying the horoscope. Naturally Aquarius was going to have a miserable Thanksgiving. The turkey would be frozen and a fight would break out at the table. On reflection, it sounded more like the Thanksgiving I was anticipating. Momo and Dad had told Eileen they would be arriving Sunday, so tensions would be running high by the time Thursday rolled around.

  Thelma finished up a story on a cat that looked like Jesus (Don’t ask), and then we headed out to see Loren Haskell. He lived outside of town on the north side, off of Highway 61. The turnoff was by a pond where a couple of Canadian geese were swimming around. We could see a barn at the end of the gravel lane, and before that was a small bungalow with white siding. Behind the barn we could see the tops of trees evenly spaced. Some kind of orchard.

  The wide door to the barn was open, and we could hear loud hammering. As we got out of the car, a big guy wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and a huge apron came out of the barn. His hair was shaggy and black, and he sported a couple days’ growth of black stubble. His arm muscles were big and hard, his waist trim. Actually, he was pretty sexy looking, and if I’d been twenty years younger. . . . Who was I kidding? He never would have given me a second look even twenty years ago.

  “Are you Loren Haskell?” I asked him.

  “I am,” he said. “Are you here about the fence?”

  “No,” I said. “Sorry. We’re from The Spyglass. This is Thelma, and I’m Aretha. We wondered if you would talk to us about Kara Koch.”

  Loren sighed and wiped his hands on the apron. “Not much to tell. Like I told the police, we split up about a month ago. She was psycho. A real nut case.”

  “So we’ve heard. Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill her?”

  Loren gave a short laugh. “Probably anybody who knew her for any length of time. She was kind of hard on boyfriends.”

  “We heard about the cutting,” Thelma said. “Did she do that with you?”

  Loren pushed up his sleeve to show a long scar running down his forearm. “That was after I told her I didn’t want her making little cuts on my hands anymore. I need my hands to do my work. She got pissed and went for me with the knife. I got my hand out of the way, but she caught my arm. That was the end of it. I threw her out and told her to stay away from me or else.”

  “Or else?” I asked.

  “Or else I was going to call the police and charge her with assault. I haven’t seen her since. Although she did pay a visit when I wasn’t here.” He turned toward the barn. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  We went inside with him and saw that he had a regular blacksmith set-up. I think I read once it’s called a smithy. There was some kind of forge and a bunch of coal piled in the corner. Several sizes of tongs rested against a shelf partway up a wall. And there was the anvil sitting on lots of concrete blocks, big hammers lying on another shelf nearby. Several iron works sat around. Some of it was wall art, in
cluding a lovely delicate vine with leaves and flowers. There were several four-foot high sculptures of birds taking flight.

  “This is nice,” I said, gesturing around.

  “Thanks. I do the local fairs and some of the other ones in the region. And commissions. I’ve got someone wanting a gate.”

  “You’ve got a beautiful place to work.”

  “It used to be,” he said, leading us to a side wall. “This is her handiwork.” Burned into the wood in huge letters it read DIE YOU PIG.

  “Wow,” I said. “She was sure big into destroying property. Not to mention mutilating people.”

  Loren’s voice was deadly calm when he said, “And apparently she did it to the wrong person.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if Loren was that wrong person. The look in his dark eyes was unreadable, but it wasn’t pleasant. A blacksmith didn’t seem like a good choice of people to cross.

  On the way back we swung by Stephanie Riley’s house, but it still looked deserted.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I was even less enthused about my outfit the second time I put it on. The demented milk maid look really didn’t suit me. But I didn’t have anything else to wear. I don’t exactly collect party clothes. Eileen does, but nothing in her closet would get past one of my thighs. My thighs are like the guard dogs keeping skinny pants away from me.

  Thelma had followed me home so she could fasten the bustier in the back.

  “It’s too tight,” I said. “It’s going to crack a rib.” When I saw her roll her eyes I said in a sing-song voice, “Yeah, I know. It won’t matter when I’m chained to the wall in a basement.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Thelma said resolutely when I was ready. “I can’t in good conscience let you do this alone.”

  “Well, you can’t come inside,” I told her. “You’re dressed like a model. You won’t fit in.”

  “And you will?” she asked skeptically.

  “I’m assuming there are costumes,” I said. “This is a role play kind of thing, right?”

  “Well, God knows what role you’re playing,” she muttered. “Maybe they’ll think you’re auditioning for the satirical version of The Sound of Music.”

  * * * * *

  The house was one of the older ones, a massive brick Italianate set high on a hill. Hannibal is a city of hills, and driving there can be like driving on a roller coaster track at times. There were already a few cars parked, and I saw a woman getting out of one. Her coat flapped open, and I could see a schoolgirl uniform underneath.

  “See?” I said to Thelma. “Costumes.”

  “Well, I think yours is going to win a prize.”

  We had taken Thelma’s car, and now she parked at the end of the row of cars in the driveway. “I probably won’t be long,” I said.

  “I’ll just play the radio.”

  She tuned to a station playing oldies, and I got out of the car to the Rocky theme song. Little did I know how apropos that was.

  No one was outside the front door, but when I stepped inside, straightening my bustier, which kept riding up, I saw an off duty officer standing in the hall. And not just any officer. It was Leonard, the same Leonard who had knocked on my door the morning after Jimmy spent the night. Beside him was a middle-aged woman in a French maid’s costume holding a clip board. At least Leonard was in jeans and a T-shirt.

  He saw me and did a double-take. “Does Jimmy know about this?” he hissed in a low voice.

  “I’m here on an assignment,” I told him.

  “One to check in,” the French maid sang out cheerfully. “Are you looking for anyone in particular tonight?”

  “Yes. David.”

  “Oh, well, good for you. He’s in the study. Third door on the right.” She winked at me and made a mark on the clip board paper. Leonard was still staring at me, aghast. “What’s your first name?” she asked.

  “That’s Aretha,” Leonard said, and he shook his head, apparently still under the impression that I was here to attend the party.

  I headed down the hall, clomping in my boots and feeling like one of those big serving maids in Dutch paintings. This was not my cup of tea.

  A man dressed all in leather was being led into another room by a fat woman, also in leather, who wore a mask over her eyes. Now there was an idea. I should have worn a mask. Then maybe Leonard wouldn’t have recognized me. I had a feeling this was going to get back to Jimmy. At least he wouldn’t see me in this get-up. I hoped to interview David Henderson and get the heck out of there within fifteen minutes.

  The door to the study was open, and I guessed that was David sitting at the desk, looking down at papers. He was about my age, more overweight than I am and balding. There was a small table lamp on the desk and a framed picture. David was dressed in a three-piece suit and wore small round glasses that he was squinting through. The room itself looked like an ordinary study except for the display on the wall behind the desk. Hanging on hooks were a wooden paddle, a buggy whip and a riding crop. Yikes. A black leather sofa dominated one side of the room with a bookcase at a ninety-degree angle to that.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Are you David Henderson?”

  He looked up at me over his glasses and cleared his throat. “I take it that the headmistress sent you here for an infraction.” He stood up and walked around the desk, leaning back against it with his arms folded.

  “Uh, no. I’m from The Spyglass. My name’s Aretha. . .”

  I never got my last name out, because I noticed he was taking off his belt.

  “Aretha, I know how to deal with girls like you. You’re a bad girl. You’re always in trouble. What you need is some discipline.”

  What I needed was a Diet Coke and some cheesecake, but I sensed that that wasn’t what he was planning.

  “Really,” I said, backing toward the door. “I just need to ask you some questions.”

  For a fat man he was surprisingly fast. He had the door closed and locked before I realized what he was doing. “Bend over the couch,” he said sternly, pointing to the couch and snapping his rolled-up belt against his leg.

  “No, really, there’s been a mistake.”

  “Now!” he snapped, and he whacked me across the backside with the belt, which made me yelp and drop my purse on the floor.

  The last time anybody hit me I was seven, and I had a babysitter who came to the house on a bicycle. Melanie was okay until the night she got upset with me because I kept interrupting her while she was on the phone with her boyfriend. She got so mad that she grabbed a wooden yardstick out of the closet and hit my backside and upper thighs with it while I ran for my life. I waited until she was deep into her phone conversation again, and then I retrieved the yardstick. When she went to pedal home that night she found a broken yardstick jammed into her bicycle chain. I got into trouble with my parents, but I didn’t care.

  “What the hell!” I yelled.

  “So you’re going to be difficult,” he said. “Well, we have a solution for bad girls who won’t take their punishment.” He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and had one of my wrists cuffed before I could react. As I said, for a fat guy he was pretty quick.

  I pulled away before he could grab my other wrist, and he caught me on the butt with the belt as I was retreating. Now I was starting to get mad. I darted behind the desk and looked for a weapon to defend myself. The obvious choice was one of the devices on the wall, and I grabbed the buggy whip.

  “Not so smart now, are you?” I said, reaching across the desk to flick his outer thigh with the whip.

  “Ow!” he said, moving back and fixing me with a steely glare. He tried to reach me with the belt but ended up knocking off the framed photo, which crashed to the floor. I glanced down and saw that it was of him with a woman and two girls, probably his daughters. Nice looking family.

  He was trying to maneuver around the desk, and when he lashed out with the belt again he caught the lamp, which
went crashing to the floor. My buggy whip had a longer reach and I cracked him a good one on his ass as he was clearing the desk.

  “Damn you!” he shouted. “You are the worst girl I’ve ever encountered.”

  “We could have avoided all of this if you’d just answer my questions,” I told him, staying out of his range as he marched toward me. “All I want to know is what your relationship was with Kara Koch.”

  “Kara?” He stopped in surprise. “Are you a friend of hers? I might have known. It wasn’t enough that she tried to burn down my house, was it?” He tried to reach me with the belt again, but I was too far away. However, I was able to catch him another good one on his leg with the buggy whip.

  “Boy, when I get a hold of you,” he said angrily. “You’re in big trouble, little missy.”

  “Don’t little missy me, Butterball! I’ve had enough of your fun and games. Now answer my questions. Why did you throw Kara out?”

  I could see he didn’t know what to do. I could reach him with the buggy whip, but he couldn’t reach me with his belt. A real conundrum for a man used to subduing women without incident.

  He chewed his lip, then said, “She got too aggressive with the men. Started cutting them when she was just supposed to use the crop.”

  He seemed to think he’d found an opening, and he lunged at me with the belt raised. I sidestepped him and gave him a good crack on his ass again.

  “Yeow!” he screamed. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “What about Kara?” I insisted. “What else can you tell me?” I moved closer to him with the whip raised, and he backed up toward the corner of the room.

  “One time she nearly beat Jeffrey Connell to death with the crop. But you can’t tell him I told you. He swore me to secrecy.”

  I could imagine that was pretty embarrassing. “Anything else, David?” I asked, giving him a light flick of the whip on his leg just for fun.

  “Ow! No, that’s it! I swear!” He took a big step back and hit the bookcase. It tottered, and books began raining down like a giant hardcover hail storm. “My God, you’re a fucking lunatic,” he yelled, shielding his head from the books with one arm and his ass from my whip with the other. “Help!” he cried. “For the love of God, someone help me!”